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Friday, 29 May 2015

Sendai reactors surrounded by 5 active volcanoesJapan’s NRA has
given the go ahead to restart two reactors at the Sendai nuclear plant.
The needed local approvals are expected to permit the plant to restart
even though public opinion is about two to one against restarts. The
first reactor could restart as early as July. Warnings for a minor
eruption at one of the five volcanoes near the Sendai nuclear plant were
sent out. The volcano 64km from the nuclear plant has seen increased
activity, enough so that experts put out a warning. Japan’s government
has been pushing to restart the Sendai reactors without a viable plan
for dealing with volcano risk.We also found other risks that are unaddressed with the Sendai plant related to any disaster response.While
the nuclear plant restarts are largely a political move to shore up the
profit margins of struggling electrical utilities, other challenges go
unaddressed. Meanwhile fuel storage at nuclear plants may be at capacity
within two years of reactor restarts.With experts disputing the
safety of restarting the Sendai reactors due to the proximity of so many
active volcanoes they may be tempting fate.

Risks at SendaiThe
Sendai nuclear power plant located in Kagoshima Japan has been selected
as the one Japanese authorities would focus on attempting to approve
for restart. Intakes reside at: 5ft above sea level Intake pump
buildings 13 feet above sea level Reactor blocks at about 35-40 ft above
sea levelRoad routes are problematic at the plant. The plant is
bordered by a large river to the north, the sea to the west and a large
expanse of mountains to the east. Roads route either north along the
river or south following the coastline a considerable distance before
you reach an area that might be undamaged. The major road that routes
towards Sendai crosses the river north of the plant before a road to get
to the plant could be reached, requiring another trip across the river.
Miyazaki sits further to the east but again requires a north route and
river crossing.All roads to the plant from the north are dependent
on a bridge across the river to travel from the north or the east. The
roads to the plant from the north as they each require a bridge
crossing, circled in red. The road faces the river edge and varies from 5
feet above sea level to 31 feet above sea level. The south route
goes through areas like Tsuchikawa, an area that would likely be
subjected to any tsunami that would hit the plant, potentially
preventing travel further east to Kagoshima. This would cause a station
blackout at the plant just like at Fukushima Daiichi.The even bigger
challenge is that the conditions that would take out offsite power
can’t be overcome. That had been the 500th eruption for the year and was
just past the half way point of 2013.The problems a volcano can
cause a nuclear power plant is a well known problem. Ash can also cause
mechanical damage to anything with moving parts that the ash may get
into including pumps and generators.The isolation of the plant due to the terrain and roads could hinder any response effort.

Non evacuation plans for SendaiPrime
minister Abe said that he approves of the evacuation plans around the
Sendai nuclear plant and that he considers them “concrete and
reasonable”. There is currently no agency or authority to evaluate
evacuation plans in Japan.The governor of Kagoshima said he was
reluctant to develop plans to rescue all the people within 30km. “There
are 17 hospitals and welfare facilities within 10 km of the plant. “We
could spend long hours creating something unrealistic, but it won’t
function” in the event of an actual disaster, Ito told reporters last
month.” The prefecture told the remaining facilities to figure it out for themselves how to evacuate anyone between the 10 to 30km zone.Critics
of the evacuation plans around Sendai pointed out that damage from
earthquakes, landslides and tsunami were not given consideration in
planning.

2 Sendai reactors cleared by NRA for restartJapan
cleared the way for a resumption of nuclear power, four years after the
world’s worst atomic disaster in more than two decades led to the
shutdown of all the country’s reactors and fueled public opposition to
the industry.Regulators said Kyushu Electric Power Co.’s two-reactor
Sendai nuclear plant had cleared safety hurdles introduced after the
triple meltdowns at Tepco’s Fukushima No. 1 plant in 2011.The Sendai
plant, in Kagoshima Prefecture, still needs to go through operational
checks before a restart but these are expected to be completed without
major hitches.

Volcano explodes off Kyushu 151 km from Sendai, forcing small island to evacuateA
volcano exploded Friday morning on sparsely populated Kuchinoerabu
Island, sending smoke and ash soaring into the sky above Kagoshima
Prefecture and residents fleeing to the safety of nearby Yakushima
Island.The 9:59 a.m. eruption of 626-meter Mount Shindake, the
island’s main peak, produced a plume over 9 km high and a pyroclastic
flow that reached the shoreline, the Meteorological Agency said.There was no warning.Situated
some 100 km off the southern tip of Kyushu, Kuchinoerabu has only about
100 full-time residents. The same mountain had 178 small eruptions in
March alone and produced one last week that created a plume 4.3 km high.Nobuo
Geshi of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and
Technology claims Friday’s eruption is the same type as the one seen at
Sakurajima but much larger.Geshi, who heads a group of scientists
conducting research on massive eruptions, said it is very similar to the
one the island experienced in 1966.He said it can also be regarded as part of the volcanic activity that continued after the eruption last August.Geshi pointed out that none of the past cases was a one-off eruption, suggesting the activity may continue for a while.Kuchinoerabu,
located in an area south of Kyushu with a large concentration of active
volcanoes, has experienced numerous bouts of volcanic activity since
Shindake’s colossal eruption in 1841, which scorched nearby villages and
killed many residents.Shindake’s volcanic activities continued in
the 1960s, resulting in another massive eruption in November 1966 that
hurt three people and caused shock waves and pyroclastic flows that hit
Kagoshima and Tanegashima Island, one of the Osumi Islands.The mountain also experienced a small phreatic eruption in September 1980.Since the 2000s, a large increase in volcanic quakes and tremors has been reported.

More than 100 people have been ordered to evacuate after a volcano
erupted on the tiny southern Japanese island of Kuchinoerabu on Friday
morning.
Spectacular TV footage captured the moment Mount Shindake exploded, sending columns of thick, black smoke high into the air.
Japan’s meteorological agency raised the alert level to five – the
highest on its scale – and ordered the island’s 140 residents to
evacuate.
The agency said no injuries or damage had been reported following the eruption, which occurred eight months after 57 people died after Mount Ontake in central Japan erupted without warning.
The agency added that pyroclastic flows, dense currents of rock
fragments and hot gases from the volcano had reached the island’s
north-west shore.
In Tokyo, the prime minister, Shinzo Abe, set up an emergency
response team and dispatched a self-defence force to the island. Abe
said he had instructed local authorities to do “everything possible” to
ensure the islanders’ safety.
Yoshihide Suga, the government’s chief spokesman, said a coastguard vessel had also been sent to help residents evacuate.
A local official said the eruption, which occurred without warning,
had forced about 100 people to take shelter at an evacuation centre.
“There was a really loud sound of an explosion, and then black smoke
rose, darkening the sky,” Nobuaki Hayashi told the national broadcaster
NHK. “It smells of sulphur.”
Source: The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/29/the-moment-japans-mount-shindake-volcano-erupts-in-spectacular-fashion

What a surprise! The operator of the destroyed ‪Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear plant, Tepco, says workers have found a leak of
highly radioactive water at the plant's site. They say the water flowed into the plant's port. (Ocean)

We are all dumbfounded by such sudden unexpected horrible news,
maybe we should start a worldwide crowdfunding project to provide
them with sufficient plenty masking tape!

The
operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant says workers
have found a leak of comparatively highly radioactive water at the
plant's site. It says the water flowed into the plant's port.

Tokyo
Electric Power Company says the contaminated water was leaking from a
hose connecting a wastewater tank and a building at the plant.

The
hose had a crack about 1 centimeter long. The contaminated water was
produced in a process to clean up rainwater tainted by radioactive
materials at the plant.

Utility officials said the leaked
water flowed into a nearby drainage channel and into the port.

They
said they detected about 1,200 becquerels per liter of beta
ray-emitting substances from water taken from the channel on
Thursday. That figure was 40 times the level the previous day.

They
said the figure rose to a maximum of 1,400 becquerels on Friday. The
officials believe the leakage continued over the two days.

The
company says concerns were raised about the hoses' durability. It has
been replacing them.

Authorities in Fukushima Prefecture have
urged the company to conduct an investigation to identify the cause
of the leak. They say the company should take thorough measures to
prevent a recurrence.

Wednesday, 27 May 2015

Their filtering systems can only removed 62 radionuclides out of the 1370 radionuclides present

The
operator of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant said Wednesday
it had finished filtering 620,000 tons of extremely toxic water stored
in tanks on the premises of the complex to lower its radiation level.
Tokyo
Electric Power Co. says the risk of radiation leakages from the water
tanks is now much lower. However, around 400 tons of radioactive water
is still being generated everyday as groundwater is seeping into the
plant and mixing with tainted water more than four years after the
nuclear crisis began.
According to Tepco, some 440,000 tons of the
water has been treated through a water processing system that is said to
be capable of removing 62 different types of radioactive material, with
the exception of tritium. The remaining 180,000 tons has been processed
through another facility capable of removing strontium, but still
contains other types of radioactive substances and needs further
treatment.
The highly radioactive water has been generated during the
process of cooling the plant’s reactors, which suffered meltdowns after
the facility was struck by a magnitude-9 earthquake and tsunami in
March 2011.
When Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited the Fukushima
plant in September 2013, Tepco President Naomi Hirose pledged that the
company would filter all the water kept in tanks by March 31, 2015 to
reduce the amount of radioactive material it contained.
But the process has been delayed due to a series of problems with key water treatment facilities.
Source : Japan Timeshttp://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/05/27/national/tepco-says-radioactive-water-fukushima-1-tanks-filtered/#.VWZW0kZZNBQ

Tuesday, 26 May 2015

The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 13, Issue. 20, No. 1, May 25, 2015

Katsuya Hirano

Murakami Tatsuya is the former mayor of Tōkaimura or Tōkai village located approximately 75 miles north of Tokyo and 111 miles south of the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
Tōkaimura is considered the birthplace of nuclear power in Japan
since the Japanese government built the first reactor for commercial use
there in 1965 in collaboration with British nuclear scientists. As Mr.
Murakami reveals below, the Japanese government at the time informed the
residents of Tōkaimura only of the building of a nuclear research
institute, not a power plant. As time passed, Tōkaimura became heavily
dependent on the nuclear industry for its revenue and people’s
livelihood. On September 30, 1999, the village had a nuclear criticality accident at the JCO nuclear reprocessing
plant. It killed two people, left one person in critical condition, and
exposed 667 people to radiation. They were the first victims of a
nuclear accident in Japan. Mr. Murakami dealt with the emergency
situation as mayor and subsequently became a vocal opponent of Japan’s
nuclear energy policy. Since the Fukushima Daiichi Plant accident of
2011, he has been a leading figure in the anti-nuclear movement
involving 24 village and town mayors, which calls for the abolition of
all 54 reactors in Japan. The interview took place at his Tōkai
residence in the summer and winter of 2014.

Tōkaimura as a Nuclear VillageHIRANO: Thank you for agreeing to this interview.
Let’s focus on issues related to Japan’s nuclear energy policies, the
Tōkaimura JCO accident, the Fukushima crisis, and their implications for
democracy in Japan.
Tōkaimura’s population is currently 38,000 and its annual budget is
16.6 billion yen. The revenue generated by the nuclear power
plant-related business is over 5.5 billion yen, which is roughly one
third of total revenue. Considering the plant’s importance in the
village economy, some critics say, it is unthinkable for you to have
proclaimed an anti-nuclear position and led the anti-nuclear movement as
mayor. Could you explain why you made that decision?MURAKAMI: You correctly note that about one-third of
the village’s revenue and operating expense is from nuclear facilities.
Actually the budget funds are a bit more than 16.6 billion yen now, 18
billion in total. This year’s budget includes 4.5 billion yen of a
financial savings fund that is budgeted for construction of an
elementary and junior high school. This amount is added to the budget.
So out of 18 billion yen, 5.5 billion yen would be revenue from
nuclear-related industries.
We have two thermal power plants here, one of which started operating
in 2013. Each plant generates 2.5 billion yen, so a total of 5 billion
yen is expected from the thermal power plants. If we don’t include it,
it will leave us with about 16 to 17 billion yen in budget. I can
certainly say we rely heavily on the nuclear money.
If you look at other local governments with a size and population
about the same as the village of Tōkaimura, their average budget is
around 12 billion yen. You might wonder if these local governments
struggle to provide adequate services to their people. The reality,
however, is that there is not much of a difference in terms of the
quality of life. In other words, Tōkaimura receives an excessive budget
because of the plant. We really don’t need that much. If you have too
much money, you tend to do evil. (Laughs.)
Another example of a local municipality hosting nuclear power plants
is Genkai-Chō 玄海町 in Saga Prefecture where about seven thousand people
reside. Their budget is 7 billion yen while other local governments with
a comparable population receive 3 billion yen in budget. You wonder how
7 billion yen enriches people’s lives there, but the reality is that
the town has to come up with something unnecessary for the community
just to use up the budget, such as building a heated indoor swimming
pool, tourist facilities or an impressive gymnasium and cultural center.
These facilities were built for a town of seven thousand residents. It
means that they are wasting the money. I guess it is “too much of a good
thing.”HIRANO: So it means that Tōkaimura can function well without the revenue from the nuclear power industry.MURAKAMI: Absolutely! If we didn’t have nuclear
power facilities, we would receive local allocation taxes just like
other local municipalities. When I was mayor, I spent the budget on the
improvement of social infrastructure, such as roads and facilities. It
might be true that Tōkaimura may have a slight advantage over other
local governments in the areas of welfare and education with extra
revenue, but it does not necessarily mean that we can improve the safety
and welfare of people significantly.
There are only 20 localities hosting nuclear power plants and related
facilities nationwide. Can you believe that there are only 20 out of
1720 local municipalities? If you include Obama City in Fukui prefecture
and Rokkasho village in Aomori prefecture, there will be 22. I have to
wonder about the legitimacy of the special treatment in the form of
subsidies that these 22 localities have been receiving from the joint
power of the government and the nuclear industry. Actually, in
situations like that, local residents tend to lose their motivation to
work hard and do not make efforts to improve their lives. They just
depend heavily on what they are given, and the dependency gradually
sucks out people’s willpower and capability to think and act for the
future of their towns on their own, just like drug addiction. I don’t
think it is good at all.HIRANO: You have been pointing out the aspect of
nuclear power as a curse that deprives local community or government of
its autonomy and independent-mindedness and leads to total dependency
and as a result destroys the community.MURAKAMI: You could say that. As for Tōkaimura,
relatively speaking, it has managed to keep its local autonomy somehow,
but once a possibility of nuclear power development is introduced to a
local government, we can’t avoid the division between proponents and
opponents. There are always people trying to profit by bringing nuclear
power plants to their community while others fight the move because of
the risks to the environment and themselves. This creates an incredible
threat to the unity of a historically harmonious community. The conflict
could last 20 to 30 years. Indeed it created a thirty-year human
conflict and struggle in some local communities.HIRANO: Did Tōkaimura experience this?MURAKAMI: Actually no. In the case of Tōkaimura, the power plants had already been built without our knowledge. (Laughs.)
What Tōkaimura agreed to host was a “Japan Atomic Energy Research
Institute,” not nuclear power plants. Tōkaimura did not invite nuclear
power plants, (laughs) so we had no idea we would end up
hosting them. In those days [the 1950s and 60s], the government, the
nuclear industry and some Liberal Democratic Party members [like
Nakasone Yasuhiro1] and people like Shōriki Matsutarō2,
were very enthusiastic about constructing nuclear power plants as a way
of boosting national prestige and part of the Cold War strategy. The
residents of Tōkaimura merely thought that they would host the Japan
Atomic Energy Research Institute, but it turned out that the power
plants came along as a part of the project.
It took 30 years for Kaminoseki-Chō in Yamaguchi prefecture as well
as Maki-Machi in Niigata prefecture to settle their dispute over nuclear
power plants. The same thing happened with Ashihama in Mie prefecture.
Kushima City in Miyazaki prefecture once voted against the construction,
but then it became clear that Kyūshū Electric Power Co., along with
pro-nuclear power activists, has not totally given up the project. It is
partly because Kyūshū Electric Power Co. has already acquired the
construction site in Kushima City just as Chūgoku Electric Power Co.
bought sites in Kaminoseki-Cho and Ashihama. Tohoku Electric Power Co.
has also purchased land in the proposed area in Maki-Machi. Recently
residents in Kubokawa in Kochi prefecture also voted against the
construction plan, but that does not mean that the project became
completely invalid. All these communities were bitterly divided and
fought against each other for 30 or 40 or even 50 years regarding plans
to construct nuclear power plants in their community.
The reason I began voicing concern about safety of nuclear power was
the JCO Company’s criticality accident of 1999 in Tōkaimura. The
accident occurred two years after I took office. While dealing with the
accident, I gradually lost confidence in the government, and I became
convinced that this country lacks adequate capabilities to maintain
nuclear power plants.
In order to promote nuclear power, the government had kept all
problems related to nuclear power hidden by putting a lid on them. But
this will cause bigger problems in the future. That was exactly like the
start of the Asia-Pacific War when Japan forced people to get involved
and moved forward. I’m always conscious of how our country proceeded
blindly with World War II. That is to say, it began covering up all
negative aspects of history with tyrannical force. There is also the
Emperor System to consider. I believe that under the System, Japan held
illusions about its ability and failed to estimate reality objectively.
The same thing is happening with nuclear power. The government is
promoting nuclear power by perpetuating the myth that nuclear power is
totally safe just as during wartime Japan began promoting the Greater
East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere while hiding from the general public what
was really going on. I thought the JCO accident occurred as a
consequence of such unfortunate practice, and sure enough, it led
straight to the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster.
After the JCO accident, the proponents of nuclear power did
everything to suppress concerns and criticisms by further promoting the
safety myth. They tightened their organizations, such as Power Reactor
and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation PNC, monitoring management more
closely as well as limiting access from outside.HIRANO: Was it done partly to prevent inside information from leaking?MURAKAMI: Exactly. I saw this tendency more and more, and felt uncomfortable with it.

HIRANO: Japanese
people were made to believe during wartime that the Kamikaze, the
“divine wind,” would bring victory to the country and they went along
with the wave of the times. Now they are facing a nuclear crisis brought
about by believing blindly in the safety myth. You have repeatedly
voiced concerns about the similarity between these two historical events
as well as their developments.MURAKAMI: As you know, Prime Minister Abe has been
bragging that nuclear technology in Japan is the most advanced or the
best in the world. I would say he is blinded by conceit. He is like a
frog in a well; he does not know what he is talking about. I am afraid
that he is arrogant and overconfident with no knowledge of his own
limitations. His vision is so limited to what is going on in Japan that
he cannot see the reality of the outside world.
We have a facility called J-PARC (Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex3)
in Tōkaimura. Japanese people praise this Japanese accelerator
constructed by Hitachi Ltd. as a product of the world’s best or most
advanced technology. I don’t deny that it is an excellent facility, but
if you go to Europe, you will find a larger and more powerful
accelerator called CERN. When it comes to electronic manufactures,
Japanese people tend to think of only Hitachi, Toshiba and Mitsubishi,
but there are many others in the world, such as Siemens and Phillips.
I said this at the time of the JCO accident when I was called as a
witness by the science and technology committee of the House of
Representatives. Technically speaking, it is possible to produce nuclear
energy. But the problem is that this country has not established a
system to regulate production. In particular, there is no separate
organization to regulate nuclear power. I told the committee that it is
very dangerous to continue under such circumstances. Japanese scientists
might be bright enough to acquire this so-called “mega-science and
technology,” but Japan has failed to create a system to control it. That
explains why the JOC accident occurred. I have been voicing these
concerns since then.HIRANO: It sounds to me as if the problems lie
within Japan’s policy makers and administrative bodies. For example,
right after the JOC accident, when you were trying hard to figure out
ways to evacuate locals safely and quickly, you could not get straight
answers from either the national government or the prefectural levels
because they themselves did not know what appropriate measures and
actions to take. In the end, you had to come up with solutions by
yourself and took actions accordingly. This example shows how unprepared
Japan is to deal with a crisis like that.MURAKAMI: Exactly. The same thing happened with the
Fukushima Nuclear Disaster. With no crisis management system whatsoever,
residents were forced to follow useless directions while dealing with
tremendous uncertainty and despair. The administrative bodies should
have created a system for risk management to respond in a way that would
minimize radioactive contamination and exposure to locals long before
the crisis occurred.
It is just unthinkable that a country like Japan, which is at high
risk of earthquake activity, possesses 54 reactors in some of its
overpopulated regions, and that there is no place to evacuate in the
event of an accident. The government and top officials in the industry
have avoided facing reality and have overlooked important safety
concerns. Instead of facing the inconvenient truth, they concluded that a
crisis was unlikely to occur in Japan.
At the time of the Fukushima Nuclear Crisis, the U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission responded right away urging Americans within 50
miles of the nuclear plants to evacuate, but the Japanese reaction was
very different. Fukushima Prefecture ordered residents within 2
kilometers (1.2 miles) of the plant to evacuate. Later this was extended
to 3 kilometers (1.9 miles,) while residents within 10 kilometers (6.2
miles) were instructed to stay inside before the evacuation order was
extended to 20 kilometers (12 miles.)Fukushima, Tōkai and Nuclear PolicyHIRANO: Both governments reacted to their respective
nuclear disasters based on the same information, but the outcome was so
different. How would you evaluate the different reactions of two
governments?MURAKAMI: I believe the U.S. government got the same
information at that time. But the population affected was much smaller,
which made the move easier and quicker. The Japanese government was
dealing with tens of thousand people in the affected area, so unless
they had been prepared, it would be difficult to act effectively. In
fact, they did not even have planned evacuation routes or procedures for
emergencies. The government’s utmost concern was to avoid panic among
the residents. I’m sure the government officials panicked themselves,
but they absolutely did not know what to do because they were unprepared
to deal with such an emergency.
They were like, “What! Isn’t there more than one route for
evacuation?” Before the accident, the implementation of emergency
evacuation measures had not even been part of nuclear disaster
prevention plans. In Japan, disaster prevention policies were originally
written based on the premise that radioactive contamination and
extensive radiation exposure would never become an issue because of the
multiple forms of protection installed around the nuclear power
facilities.
The publication of emergency evacuation plans would lead to questions
and concerns about nuclear safety, so this was not even considered.
According to the safety design regulatory guide for nuclear reactors,
severe nuclear-related accidents would not occur in Japan because the
power supply would be restored within eight hours of a station blackout.
Before that, the emergency diesel generator would operate the isolation
cooling system to provide enough water to safely cool the reactor until
external power was restored. Based on the assumptions of the regulatory
guide, there was no need to implement evacuation plans for residents.
This mentality reminds me of wartime Japan. They said that there was
no need to think about being a prisoner of war because Japan would never
lose. Don’t even think of becoming a captive. Before being humiliated
as a prisoner, give your life for your country. I feel it is the same. I
mean I see authoritarian power … well … the fragility of society.HIRANO: There seems to be a lack of customs or
habits in Japanese government and politics to make clear where the prime
responsibility lies. For example, they built nuclear power plants, but
they never thought through who would be responsible and how they should
act in a crisis. All they did was build plants and focus on the benefits
they would bring. That’s why Japan built 54 reactors on such a small
and densely populated island.MURAKAMI: That’s right.HIRANO: Did you experience such irresponsible
responses from government officials and representatives from the
industry in the aftermath of the JOC accident?

MURAKAMI: What
bothered me most was the fact that they closed the case without even
trying to reflect thoroughly on the real cause of the accident. The
explanation they came up with was that the workers had failed to use
proper tools and equipment. They used the bucket and ladle rather than
the dissolving tank to mix 18.8% enriched uranium oxide and nitric acid.
Of course, the public was shocked to hear that and was easily convinced
that the accident had been unavoidable under the circumstances.
But the real problems lay elsewhere and no one seemed to pursue it.
The real problems were that they built the very small and potentially
hazardous fuel preparation plant to deal with 18.8% uranium, while no
major civil reactor elsewhere uses uranium enriched beyond 5% in
residential areas, and the plant was not adequately designed to prevent
the possibility of a criticality accident.
Moreover, they had inspected the plant only once since it began
operation and failed to do a routine inspection for seven or eight years
after that. Not only that, but the Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel
Development Corporation, which is the company JCO received the contract
from, did nothing to supervise the operation. Even after the accident
they left their responsibilities vague, concluding that the cause of the
accident was "human error and serious breaches of safety principles” as
exemplified in the use of the bucket and ladle. They claimed that it
was a rare incident that was isolated from the mainstream workings of
Japan Atomic Energy Research.
Now let me explain what was going on in the reactor in Tōkaimura at
the time of the Great East Japan Earthquake. You might have heard that
the tsunami wave almost spilled over the 70 centimeters (28 inches)
protective seawalls, but seawater did enter into the pump chamber,
narrowly avoiding reaching the ceiling by 40 centimeters (16 inches).
Inside the chamber, there were several seawater pumps intended to
cool an emergency diesel generator, but one of the pumps was submerged
under seawater and was not able to cool the generators sufficiently, so
one of the three generators failed. We were very close to a station
blackout.
With insufficient cooling power, the pressure of the reactor core
rapidly increased and too much vapor was released, which prevented
cooling water from entering. There is something called a main steam
relief valve that is usually motor-operated in order to isolate the
steam source from the turbine. Not being able to operate it properly or
fast enough with the motor, technicians ended up operating it manually
as many as 170 times. At the last stage, the valve was left open for a
long time in order to keep the cooling system going. We nearly faced a
station blackout.
Also, just one week prior to the earthquake and tsunami we finally
completed construction to raise the height of the tide wall, and it was
only two days before the earthquake when we finally closed the entrance
path for the construction workers, which was a big gap in the wall. We
were really lucky.HIRANO: I read about it and realized how close
Tōkaimura came to being as disastrous as Fukushima. We can say that it
was a near miss. If a hydrogen explosion had occurred at Tōkaimura, the
entire Kanto region would have been doomed, wouldn’t it?MURAKAMI: There are 14 reactors on the shoreline
from Onagawa in Miyagi prefecture to Tōkaimura, and I wouldn’t have been
surprised if all these reactors had ended up failing in some way or
another.HIRANO: You mean that they were all dealing with similar dangerous situations?MURAKAMI: Exactly. For example, Onagawa lost 4 out
of 5 external power supply lines and the only one left barely managed to
supply power to its nuclear power station units 1, 2 and 3. Fukushima’s
No. 2 facility was in the same situation. All four reactors, 1-4, lost
their external power supply to maintain the heat removal system, but
reactor 3 quickly recovered to retain its function to stabilize other
reactors. Then workers also had to restore power by laying more than
five miles of heavy electrical cables by hand.
Of course if Reactor 4 at Fukushima No.1 had suffered more damage,
there would have been no chance to save the Fukushima No. 2 facility. If
it had failed, the Tōkai No. 2 reactor would have been severely
damaged. It would have been like a chain reaction.
It tells you how catastrophic it could be for a country like Japan to
house nuclear power plants. While about 150,000 people or so were
living within 20 or 30 kilometers of the Fukushima No.1 plant, there are
one million people living within 30 kilometers (18 miles) of the Tōkai
plant and 750,000 people within 20 kilometers (12.5 miles).HIRANO: It is unthinkable that they built the plant in an over-populated area like that.MURAKAMI: It is crazy. Right now about 130,000
people in Fukushima have been evacuated from the exclusion areas,
although it would be 80,000 or 90,000 people if we do not count
voluntary evacuees. As far as Tōkaimura goes, the number of evacuees
would be at least 10 times that of Fukushima, actually, it might be 20
times.HIRANO: What if you include voluntary evacuees?MURAKAMI: Yes, if we include them, it would be
estimated at 1.5 or 1.6 million people. Who would guarantee the
livelihood of these people?HIRANO: It would be hard. The government would go bankrupt.MURAKAMI: Also there are many Hitachi manufacturing
divisions and plants in this area, and it is impossible to compensate
for damages to the company. They are estimating that it would cost 5
trillion yen to compensate for 80,000 people, so it is absolutely
impossible to think about compensating for the damage caused by
Tōkaimura No. 2, even with state compensation. It means that victims of a
disaster at the Tōkai plant would have no choice but to drop the case
altogether. They wouldn’t be able to expect anything.HIRANO: I don’t think it would be an option to find a place to relocate that many residents at once, either.MURAKAMI: I don't think so, especially within this
country. If it were possible, they would have relocated the victims in
Fukushima by now. Speaking from the examples of Chernobyl, Fukushima
should have been declared uninhabitable, especially to raise children.HIRANO: I agree. Mr. Koide Hiroaki of Kyoto University4
claims that it does not solve anything just to give money to the
victims. At least families with small children should have been given
new land somewhere safe to start their lives again. The government
should have provided them with a new village and community to live.MURAKAMI: But I don’t know if we can find such a
place in this country. In fact, I thought about the possibility of
relocating the entire Tōkaimura myself. The news about the Fukushima
crisis chilled me to the bone. As I mentioned, we were so close to
having a similar situation, so I started thinking about relocating the
entire village and in fact found a place in Hokkaido. (Laughs.)HIRANO: Hokkaido, is that right? (Laughs.)MURAKAMI: Yes, I thought about the possibility of
relocating 38,000 residents and have them start dairy farming and
cultivating new land in Hokkaido. I know it should not cost as much to
buy land there as in Tōkaimura. I even visited the area. If it doesn’t
work, I thought, other alternatives would be Australia or our sister
state, Idaho. (Laughs.) Of course, we would first need to
acquire water rights there, but we could start working on an irrigation
system in the desert. It is exactly the land cultivation project of the
21st century. But it is often the case that mass relocation like this would face discrimination in the new land. (Laughs.) If we are relocating with one or two people, we would be welcomed, but a mass relocation would be different no matter where.
Actually this is a serious matter in the sense that Tōkaimura alone
cannot come up with some kind of solution if an accident occurs at the
Tōkai No.2 reactor. All neighboring communities, such as Mito city,
Hitachi city and Hitachinaka city, need to be involved in the decision
over what to do in a scenario like that.

Struggle for Local Autonomy HIRANO: Do you have any communication or collaboration among the neighboring cities and villages?MURAKAMI: Yes, we do. With Mito city [the capital of
Ibaraki prefecture] in charge, we’ve formed a central district chief
committee 県央地域首長懇話会 with mayors from all local municipalities as far
north as Tōkaimura and as far south as Omitama city. Also, after the
Great East Japan Earthquake and the subsequent nuclear power plant
accident, I organized a committee with mayors from five adjacent
municipalities surrounding the nuclear power plant in Tōkaimura,
including Hitachinaka city, Mito city, Naka city, Hitachi city and
Hitachi Ohta city.
According to the safety agreement with Japan Atomic Power Company,
the Tōkai nuclear reactor could resume operations as soon as the company
obtains approval from both Tōkaimura and Ibaraki Prefecture, but now
these adjacent municipalities are demanding a part in the
decision-making process. It is quite understandable because they would
receive as much damage as Tōkaimura. The population of Hitachinaka city
is about 160,000, and Naka city has 60,000 to 70,000 people. The mayors
in Naka city and Hitachinaka city are working hard for it.HIRANO: So are these local governments clearly expressing opposition to bringing the nuclear reactor back on line?MURAKAMI: Well, not explicitly. Tōkaimura has a new
mayor now, but I think he and I share similar opinions. As you know,
these mayors are not totally free to say whatever they want. They need
to take their political position and situation into consideration, such
as future elections and various positions of the political party they
belong to, so they would rather leave the issue vague in order to avoid
political conflict. (Laughs.) But the mayor of Hitachinaka
city, Mr. Honma, has expressed his opposition openly. The mayor of
Omitama city explicitly said no to restarting the reactor. He himself is
a dairy farmer. And the former mayor of Shirosato-cho and of Ishioka
city, which is not a part of the committee, also expressed his
opposition. It is the same with the mayor of Hokota city, whose main
industry is agriculture. The mayor of Ibaraki-machi stays rather vague
because its neighboring town, Ōarai-machi, is highly dependent on
nuclear power. In fact, the industry is tactful in enticing mayors.HIRANO: Do you mean that a mayor might be getting large “donations” from the industry during the election?MURAKAMI: Hmmm, I don’t think that is the case here
in Tōkaimura. I don’t believe that is the case with Ōarai-machi either,
because in Ōarai most city council members are associated with the Japan
Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI) and Japan Atomic Energy Agency
(JAEA) anyway. I don’t think political donations are the issue. I would
say their influence is not from money but the way they approach local
government. They are very polite and humble. You know, these top elite
scientists with a PhD are graduates from prestigious schools like Tokyo
University, but they never act arrogantly. If these respectful, elite
gentlemen come to see you and ask for a favor, I can see how it could be
sometimes hard to say no to them.
When I was still mayor in Tōkaimura, I received a request from the
Japan Atomic Power Company (JAPC) to build unit 3 and 4 reactors, but I
was not enthusiastic about building additional reactors. At the time of
the Tōkaimura nuclear accident in 1999, the plan to build J-PARC (Japan
Proton Accelerator Research Complex) had already been finalized and the
construction had begun, so after the accident I decided that we should
end the dependency on nuclear money as a way for community building and
development, and that we should focus more on becoming a
research-oriented community.
That’s how the concept of “Tōkai Science Town” was born. This was
something we had been discussing even before the Fukushima Disaster.
Since the completion of J-PARC, I have spoken about this on various
occasions as “the dawn of a new era for Tōkaimura.” Of course, we will
lose a host of subsidies, property and income tax revenues.
Some might think that all we need is to invite facilities or
industries that bring a lot of financial resources to our community.
Such logic seems to me too simple. I wanted to free us from dependency
on so-called easy money.
Judging from how the Japanese economy has been changing, I could tell
that the new era has come. For Tōkaimura we should shift direction and
create our community utilizing social and cultural values that J-PARC
would bring. I have been saying this since a few years prior to the
Fukushima nuclear accident.
First, we came up with the idea of “Tōkaimura Advanced Science
Research Cultural City” 東海村高度科学研究文化都市構想. I intentionally included the
word “culture” in it. I believe we came up with this concept around 2003
or so, but we did not move forward with it until about 2010 when we
organized a committee to work on a concept for a science town. We had
our first meeting in June. At that time, I knew that nuclear dependency
would eventually lead to a dead end.
Under the influence of Abenomics5, Japan is mainly
focusing on GDP expansion, but I know that this will end soon. In order
for local communities to survive economic downturn, I believe that we
need to work together to depart from the GDP expansion principle and
obsession with economic developmentalism. We need to focus more on
primary industries like agriculture and the craft industry or welfare.
If we strengthen these areas, I know our town will attract a lot of
people to settle in our community. I have been advocating this for quite
a while even before the Fukushima accident.HIRANO: Why did you include the word “culture” in the new concept for Tōkaimura.MURAKAMI: I wanted to emphasize that what we are trying to create for our community is not all about money.HIRANO: So, it is not money but culture or rather
what people create and value. If it is only science without culture,
people in general might associate Tōkaimura with the money or profit
that science and technology could bring in.MURAKAMI: That's right. The first thing that could
come to mind might be money when we are planning the future of our
community, but I wanted to emphasize that money and numbers alone cannot
make us happy. I don’t think it is necessarily true that people with
income of 5,000,000 yen a year are much happier or have a better life
than those who earn 3,000,000 yen a year. I really don’t think so.
Many people ask me what I am going to do to maintain the economy if I
abolish the nuclear power plants. First of all, I am not really certain
that nuclear power would really enrich our lives. This is a brochure
that someone put together explaining what directions we would like to
take in the future to recreate our community. This does not necessarily
reflect exactly what I have in mind, but states that we need to depart
from an economy-focused or growth-oriented society and that it is time
to establish local autonomy.
Instead of pursuing economic gain, we should focus on how to increase
cultural value and social value in our lives by utilizing what we
already have or by creating something new by applying our wisdom and
experience. For example, we have J-PARC here in Tōkaimura and we can
make that our asset. We have about 100 to 150 visitors from overseas at
J-PARK every day, and we have about the same number of people from all
over Japan. So we need to create a community to welcome and accommodate
these people.HIRANO: I’m very interested in your concept of local
autonomy. Generally speaking, local autonomy implies a sense of being
closed or exclusive, but what you are advocating here is rather to open a
door to the world and contribute to transnational interaction by
utilizing local assets and features.MURAKAMI: Exactly. In 2011, before the Great East
Japan Earthquake occurred, we organized a meeting to talk about the
basic philosophy, goals and concept for the future of our community. We
called it the Tōkaimura 5th Comprehensive Plan. About 150
residents showed up and the basic philosophy they created together was
“community building that reflects residents’ wisdom and knowledge for
all living things in the present and future.” The plan elaborates on
this philosophy in the following way: 1. we will create and pass down
the wisdom that enables us to learn from the past, reflect on the
present, and build the future; 2. we will use villagers’ wisdom to
create together a society that treats every individual with respect and
also provides her/him with various opportunities to fulfill her or his
life; 3. we will respect the harmony and connectedness of nature and
life and gather all our wisdom to create a community filled with
vitality that generates new ways of living. They came up with this idea
all by themselves as the future goal for Tōkaimura.HIRANO: It is really impressive, isn’t it? I wish
every local government would adopt this democratic process for community
building. Did they meet multiple times before they finalized their
plans?MURAKAMI: Yes, and I did not make any suggestions to
them as mayor. Interestingly enough, what they came up with perfectly
matched what I had in mind. I think that it proves that my concern that
“Abenomics” prioritizes economic growth is widely shared by citizens. It
seems natural that people have started questioning the direction in
which Abenomics is leading the country.HIRANO: We can say in some sense that nuclear power is a symbol of an economy-focused society.MURAKAMI: Exactly. It is a typical example. Usually
nuclear power plants are built in impoverished rural areas, and local
communities become heavily dependent on the money nuclear plants bring
them.
Speaking of Tōkaimura, we have a lot of inns, but rather than being
for ordinary travelers, they are for nuclear power plant workers, so the
accommodations are quite simple and shabby. They only eat and sleep
there, often sleeping in one big room together and sharing a bathroom. (Laughs.)
Of course some of the inns are called “business hotels,” but if regular
customers stay there once, they won’t want to stay again. (Laughs.)
When we had completed J-PARC, I suggested that the inn owners
renovate their rooms to accommodate researchers and students who were
coming to visit the facility from all over the world, but they refused,
saying “No, thank you.” They said that it is too much trouble especially
having visitors from overseas. They can operate their businesses fine.
They are not motivated to do anything extra.HIRANO: Do these owners also support nuclear power?MURAKAMI: Sure. Some of the inns are even located in
the middle of a rice field. When I first became mayor, I did not
understand why there were inns in the middle of nowhere, but then I
gradually came to understand.HIRANO: Nuclear dependency has created a kind of distorted structure in the local community.MURAKAMI: Exactly. Indeed, we have a lot of inns
everywhere in this town. While there are some within one kilometer of
the power plant, some are located in places that do not make sense, for
example in places where you can’t even catch a taxi, instead of near the
train station or downtown. They are all for the plant workers, and the
inn owners can make a decent living off of it. The nuclear power company
has a contract with these inns, so the owners do not have to do
anything to attract customers. They can do good business without any
effort. The same goes for stationery stores and clothing stores in
Tōkaimura. They don’t do business with residents, because they don’t
need to. The nuclear power company’s branch offices buy their goods
regularly, so these businesses are stable and secure without extra work.HIRANO: That’s precisely what nuclear dependency means, doesn’t it?MURAKAMI: Exactly. It is called dependency not only
financially but also mentally. The population in Tōkaimura is growing
with young families moving into town. We have a lot of babies, but
business owners have no interest in them, even though I suggested that
they target young families.HIRANO: In this structure of dependency, you can’t cultivate and grow other local businesses that would accommodate needs of residents.MURAKAMI: That’s right, as long as our industrial structure disproportionately depends on nuclear-related business.HIRANO: I see. I can imagine you must have dealt with a lot of criticism when you began advocating for the new town concept.MURAKAMI: I do not personally remember having heard
much criticism, but I am sure there were complaints about what I was
advocating, and also there were people who were hoping that I would lose
the next election.
Anyway, I am skeptical that under the influence of the nuclear
industry we will succeed in cultivating other businesses independently.
Construction companies and machine processing companies are fine as long
as they keep ties with the nuclear power industry. In other words, they
are no longer competitive.Right now, however,
operation of the Tōkaimura reactor is suspended, so business owners
won’t be making money and they may go out of business.HIRANO: Futaba town6 in Fukushima,
which was once a declining town, was also trapped in a vicious cycle by
continuing to build reactors in exchange for substantial subsidies from
housing nuclear power plants.MURAKAMI: That’s right. Futaba had once struggled
financially so badly that it was designated for fiscal consolidation.
When the town reached the brink of bankruptcy, it again turned to Tokyo
Electric for financial help and approved a plan to build two new
reactors, No.7 and No. 8. When the town began to recover, the Fukushima
disaster occurred, and the evacuation of the entire community followed. I
remember back then, the town’s former mayor Mr. Idogawa was working
desperately to bring nuclear plants to the town. But now he has become a
vocal critic of nuclear power. He himself was forced to evacuate to
Saitama and has not been able to return.
Now let me talk about the reaction I received from the residents in
Tōkaimura after I began opposing nuclear power. Although some of them
might have been hoping that I would lose the following election, I did
not really experience protests or personal attacks. Most of the
residents I dealt with at that time were very supportive of me, although
I am sure behind my back there were a lot of people who fiercely
opposed what I was standing for. I also got a lot of support and
encouragement from former or retired employees at Hitachi Ltd. and
Atomic Energy Agency.HIRANO: You mentioned earlier that issues of nuclear
power plants often divide a town. Did you also see the problem among
the city council members in Tōkaimura?MURAKAMI: Yes, they were divided in half. At first,
not a single council member clearly opposed nuclear power, but after
discussing a petition for decommissioning the Tōkai No. 2 reactor with
our nuclear special committee for a year or so, some members began
making their anti-nuclear stance clear. They are not the majority yet,
but I would say about half of the council members oppose nuclear power
now. I can say the same thing about the residents. About half of them
are anti-nuclear while the other half supports it.HIRANO: What made you decide to run for office? Is it because you had visions for the town?MURAKAMI:I wouldn’t say it was
mainly for my hometown although I was hoping to be able to do things to
eventually benefit the town. One reason why I began thinking of running
for office was that in 1997 the decentralization promotion committee
issued the second recommendation. It stated the basic concept of
autonomy for local governments by giving administrative authority and
responsibility as well as legislative power to local government. I knew
that the era of political decentralization and shifting power from the
long-standing centralized government to local government would be
coming. This hope eventually made me enter politics.
Of course, I wanted to change the way the local government had been
operating here. I had been observing that local governments always
turned to prefectural government, and prefectures turned to national
authority. Simply speaking, a prefecture is nothing but a national
government agency, but local governments all turn to it. All local
officials thought about was how to get things done through petitioning
the central government. Instead, I wanted to get townspeople involved in
the process of creating their own community by putting them in charge. I
found it very rewarding to lead, and I also wanted to change the way
the local office would operate by staffing it with new officials. That
was my ideal.HIRANO: Did you also think at that time that you
would like to change the way the local economy had been working for
Tōkaimura by shifting from nuclear dependency?MURAKAMI: Actually I did not have that vision yet.
Tōkaimura was financially well-established, so at the beginning I
thought anything would be possible as long as we put in effort. Then we
had the JCO accident within two years after I took office. While
struggling to find a way to pull our town together and recover from the
accident, I decided to turn to the city of Minamata7
for help. I visited there and met the mayor and residents. They taught
me a lot. In those days, people just believed that the only way to
develop local towns was by getting help from the central government or
bringing large corporations to the area, but I learned from Minamata
that we rather need to break away from the old mindset focusing on
economic growth and development and create a sustainable society,
focusing on and paying more attention to protecting the environment and
respecting human beings. In that sense, Minamata was my starting point.HIRANO: It is almost ironic how history is repeating
itself. A similar set of problems to what Minamata had suffered arose
after the Fukushima accident.MURAKAMI: That’s right. Exactly.HIRANO: It means that lessons learned from Minamata
need to be applied in order to deal with the situations people in the
larger Fukushima area are facing now.MURAKAMI: You are right. I also see that if we keep depending on Abenomics, local towns and cities will decline rapidly.HIRANO: So you mean that sort of Neo-liberalism?MURAKAMI: Neo-liberalism, that’s right. I thought
about this at the time of the Koizumi administration (2001-2006). This
is how Prime Minister Koizumi thinks. Why are you living in such a
remote mountain or on an isolated island? It costs too much to support
you, so move out from there. I will give you three or four hundred
thousand dollars so that you can live in a city. It’s cheaper. If you
stay in such remote areas, we have to fly a helicopter to get you to a
hospital when you get sick. It costs the government too much money. (Laughs.) That’s what I call Neo-liberalism.HIRANO: They cut off everything local.MURAKAMI: Cut off, cut off. That exactly happened with the merger of cities and villages. It was the Great Heisei Mergers.8HIRANO: Koizumi planned to establish small cities in
local areas through consolidation and eradicate “useless” rural
communities to achieve maximum economic efficiency.MURAKAMI: That’s right. He wanted to get rid of
them, claiming it would greatly improve economic efficiency for the
country. That was what Koizumi’s reform efforts were all about. And the
trend has been accelerated by Abenomics now. Mr. Masuda Hiroya, a close
associate of the Abe government, published a rather disturbing statement
that about half of Japan’s regional cities may disappear by 2040. I
don’t believe it would happen because the theory is based exclusively on
economic rationality. When we think about economic rationality and
people’s values, they may conflict.
What national wealth means is, as the court rulings of the Ohi
nuclear trial states, that people live in a rich land and the people’s
livelihood should be enriched by it. That’s what national wealth should
mean, but the idea of economic efficiency comes only from the
perspective of monetary wealth.“National Policy” and “Natural Disaster” HIRANO: Let’s talk about the concept of “national
policy” (国策). In your book, you talk about how the concept plays a
psychological role in people’s mindsets. I was impressed with your keen
insight.MURAKAMI: It is said that nuclear energy policies
were implemented as a national policy, but it is not clear who actually
decided this. It is true that the government has been in charge of its
promotion, but I have to wonder how much the opinions and feelings of
residents or local governments that house nuclear reactors have been
taken into consideration under the name of national policy.
Then I looked the word up in a dictionary, and found that the term
“national policy” is associated with colonialism. According to the
Kōjien dictionary, the colonial powers created national policy in order
to control and promote the development of colonies. I indeed thought it
explained well the true nature of national policy. The term is
self-explanatory; in other words, it is a policy adopted by the
government.
There are many policies that fit under that category, but only few
are given the title of “national policy”. I believe nuclear energy
policy alone is referred to as a national policy nowadays. Mass media
still often uses the term without hesitation, but it is only during
wartime when the term “national policy” is clearly applied.For example, Basic National Policy Guidelines9 and Imperial National Policy Guidelines10 during the Asia-Pacific war – they are all associated with war.HIRANO: That’s right. National policies implies mobilization of the whole country; that is the premise.MURAKAMI: Exactly. In that sense, national policies
mean that people are forced to make sacrifices for their country. In
other words, it is for a greater cause and that’s why it is a virtue to
dedicate one’s life to their country. The term “national policies”
implies this, doesn’t it? Even though it is an era of decentralization
of power, some people in local areas regard nuclear energy as a national
policy and dismiss their opponents as people who are against national
policies. We still have people like that in Tōkaimura nowadays.
Even some of the local government chief officers, especially ones
hosting nuclear power plants, say they are hesitant about speaking out
against or even making decisions on nuclear power themselves, because
they are national policies. It seems to me all they are doing is
avoiding their responsibility. Saying that it is something the
government decides, they keep silent about whether or not nuclear plants
should be reactivated. The central government also tries to silence
local governments in the name of national policy. This is how national
policy works.HIRANO: It is the most anti-democratic approach, isn’t it?MURAKAMI: Exactly. It’s the most anti-democratic way. It is just like the Liberal Democratic Party’s draft constitution. (Laughs.)
According to it, the government matters most, not the citizens. I think
the mass media should really expose the fact that nuclear energy
policies are anti-democratic.HIRANO: Now let’s talk about another problematic
language – natural disasters and man-made disasters. I heard that it is
commonly accepted in Japan to treat the Fukushima nuclear accident as a
natural disaster. People say that this kind of large earthquake does not
occur often, maybe only once every thousand years, so there was nothing
we could have done to prevent the disaster, and we should just move on.MURAKAMI: It is actually dangerous to think that
way. They say only once every thousand years, but that means it may
happen every thousand years. It seems to me that it is very high
frequency. And although they say only once every thousand years, there
was the huge trench-based earthquake off Indonesia’s Sumatra Island in
2004 and in Chile in 2010, as well.
Around 2006, we had background checks for earthquake resistance on
the nuclear power plant in Tōkaimura, but they were mainly concerned
about the active fault due to the Niigata-Chuetsu Earthquake of 2004. So
I told them that the Japan Trench is lying right in front of us within
150 kilometers off the coast, and asked them if this posed a safety
concern to us, considering what had happened at Sumatra Island. They
said there was no need to worry about it because the Japan Trench lies
where the pacific plate subducts smoothly beneath the continental plate,
unlike off Sumatra Island, so energy won’t be accumulated. They assured
me saying we would not experience a huge earthquake like the Indian
Ocean earthquake here in Tōkaimura. They are employees at a nuclear
power plant who are in charge of earthquake resistance Although it is
said that earthquakes like that may happen every thousand years, they
are happening more frequently. For some reason, someone made this theory
based on the Jogan Earthquake of the year 869. I don’t believe it.HIRANO: In fact, there was the Hōei Earthquake in 1707.MURAKAMI: You are right. There was 1855 Edo Ansei Earthquake, as well.HIRANO: Exactly.MURAKAMI: Of course, we can’t forget the Great Kanto
Earthquake of 1923. Anyway, the claim that it only happens once every
thousand years is just deception. Even if it were true, we should not
think that there is nothing we could do. We build nuclear reactors on
the earth and in nature. It means that we should expect that something
unpredictable and beyond human ability might happen. They might also
blame the tsunami for the Fukushima disaster, but how can they say that
after building nuclear reactors on an earthquake-prone archipelago? I
believe that once an accident happens with nuclear power, there is no
going back. We are doomed. This should be the scientific spirit.HIRANO: In some sense, the fact that it was “unexpected” should not be an excuse.MURAKAMI: That’s right, because we are the ones who
created something that should not exist to begin with. As you know, the
atom does not exist in nature, but we manipulated the nucleus inside an
atom and opened up a Pandora’s box, so we should have prepared for risks
and taken measures to respond. That is what is called the scientific
spirit, I think. That’s why I believe that it is nothing but an excuse
to define the Fukushima nuclear accident as something “unexpected.” It
is a man-made, not a natural, disaster.Elite and Cover-up CultureHIRANO: What about the prevalence of cover-ups? What do you think of this tendency among elites in Japanese society?MURAKAMI: This has something to do with the widely
shared elite mentality. They honor self-sacrifice for the “greater good”
or “common good,” which includes sacrificing your own life. You see it
from how military officers acted and treated people during pre-war and
wartime Japan. They didn’t hesitate to sacrifice citizens’ and soldiers’
lives in the name of the Emperor and in defense of our country. It is
also true that they were driven to act this way for self-protection. I
wonder how many citizens have been abandoned in the past.
There were Japanese civilian settlers who the Japanese government
dispatched to what was then Manchuria. In the end, many of them,
including children, were abandoned after the war. The Japanese Army
heard about the Soviet Red Army crossing the Manchurian border, but did
not let the settlers know about it. The Japanese Army rapidly retreated
to the capital, Shinkyo (today’s Changchun), leaving the settlers
behind. Millions of Japanese civilians were abandoned.
In fact, things like that happened not only in Manchuria but also on
Saipan where Japanese civilians, who had lived on the island, were
forced to fight against American soldiers. Worse than that was the
battle of Okinawa. The Japanese military used civilians in Okinawa as a
shield for the defense of the mainland and sacrificed their lives. Then
it launched preparations for the final decisive battle, where the one
hundred million people of the Japanese empire were expected to fight as
one. For Japan’s leaders it was more important to not lose face before
their superiors, as well as to protect the emperor, than to protect
hundreds and hundreds of thousands of lives. This explains the reality
of Japanese elites.
As for Fukushima, they tried to hide information from residents in
Fukushima. Elites from the Fukushima Prefectural Government did the same
thing. They did not hesitate to put residents in danger in order to
protect their organization. We see such people in big corporations as
well.HIRANO: I see. The commitment to the greater good
that Japanese elites value means, in the end, abandoning or discarding
citizens. They are also protecting themselves.MURAKAMI: Sure, their only purpose is to protect
themselves including their social status and their organization. You
surely will be kicked out if you dare to question them or even mention
that they might be risking people’s lives. If you were to speak up, you
would need to prepare for the consequences. We can say the same thing
about the nuclear industry in Japan. A pyramid of power has been
established in which graduates of Tokyo University reign at the top. All
they care about is how they are treated in the organization and
society, just as government officials do.Constitution MattersHIRANO: Let me ask you about the Constitution, in
particular your view of the importance of individual freedom and human
dignity. The Abe administration has been questioning its value and
validity. And I think this issue is deeply interconnected with the way
the administration deals with the disasters caused by the Fukushima
power plant explosions.MURAKAMI: During our education, we learned about the
Constitution superficially. Freedom of speech or academic freedom was
an object to memorize. But understanding it from a historical
perspective is crucial. For example, Articles 31 to 40 explicitly forbid
abuse by the police and state authorities. We need to think about why
these articles were written so explicitly. It is because there had been a
series of laws designed to suppress dissent in pre-war Japan, such as
the Public Order and Police Law of 1900 and the Public Security
Preservation Law of 1925. Under these laws, human rights were suppressed
and brutally crushed by the full power of authority.
That’s the background of how criminal justice has been established in
the Constitution, and that’s the reason why the Constitution describes
each article in such detail. For example, Article 33 states that no one
shall be apprehended without an arrest warrant issued by a competent
judicial officer. Article 35 includes the right of protection against
unusual searches and seizures, and the right to remain silent is
guaranteed by Article 38.
I also realized the importance of Article 13 while holding public
office and dealing with social welfare policies and services. It states
that all people shall be respected as individuals. As you know, the
Liberal Democratic Party has criticized individualism, saying that it
has introduced the idea of selfishness to Japanese society and families
and destroyed unity, but I realized while I was in office how crucial it
is to look at every single person individually for purposes of social
welfare and services. Recently I came across an article written by the
late Hisada Eisei. He was a Constitutional scholar at Hokkaido
University of Education who was deployed to Luzon in the Philippines
during World War II, although he tried to flee the battlefield and never
engaged in combat. In his book he describes how emotional he became
when he saw Article 9 aboard the repatriation ship, and he claims that
Article 13 is the fundamental principle of the Japanese Constitution:
respect for human dignity.11HIRANO: You have pointed out in your writings that
Abe pushes his various policies by taking advantage of the criticism of
individualism. He also often talks about his new defense and foreign
policy doctrine, what he calls “proactive pacifism,” claiming that it
will enable Japan to play an assertive role in promoting regional
stability as an active contributor to peace and will bring more
protection to individual rights and serve the nation in the long run.
What he is actually saying, however, is that individuals or his
interpretation of individualism should be sacrificed for the interest of
the nation. The nation or society comes before people. That’s what
pacifism means to him. You are taking a diametrically opposite stance
trying to understand what individualism really means, aren’t you?MURAKAMI: That’s exactly right. If the nation does
not exist, Abe claims, you will lose your life and freedom. What I
believe is that individuals come first before the nation. When the
nation or the government comes first, it will seize absolute power to
control our lives as the wartime military has very well demonstrated. I
argue that the nation should be built based on the principle of basic
human rights, such as individual freedom and dignity. Abe speaks as if
all of Japan’s neighboring nations are going to attack us. What he is
trying to accomplish is the creation of a climate of fear.HIRANO: Yes, by purposely stirring up nationalistic sentiment against China and Korea.MURAKAMI: Exactly.HIRANO: The Liberal Democratic Party has benefited greatly from tensions and disputes they provoke.MURAKAMI: Although Abe said that he was open to
starting a dialogue with China about the Senkaku islands, he did not
take any actions to negotiate when Chinese patrol ships entered waters
near the islands.HIRANO: He made it clear that for Japan the question of ownership was not open to negotiation.MURAKAMI: He has often said that we need to “bring
back Japan” or “depart from the postwar regime”, but he uses these
slogans to justify his policies. That is why he does not want to
negotiate. He does not visit, nor does he send anyone to have a talk
with China’s Coast Guard to prevent further accidents. As we know, Abe
and his administration’s objectives have been to revise the Constitution
and to over turn the postwar regime. In order to accomplish these
goals, he refuses to negotiate.Democracy in CrisisHIRANO: What do you think about democracy in Japan?
You mentioned to me on other occasions that you have some hope for
Japanese young people, but it seems to me that the current situation is
far from being optimistic. I have to wonder how postwar democracy has
been functioning in this country. Observing the situation Japanese
society is facing right now, especially after the Fukushima disaster, I
am not quite sure how deeply postwar democracy has been established in
this society.MURAKAMI: I believe that one of the basic principles
of democracy is the existence of the individual, but in Japan I feel
that once each individual citizen is put into a big group, the
individual is weakened or almost disappears. That’s why democracy cannot
take root in this country. A lot of people think that democracy means
deciding things by majority vote.But I don’t think so
at all. Some people even say that once a political party wins by
majority vote, citizens should not object to what the party decides.
They believe that is what should be done in a democratic society. I
believe that democracy means to listen to and respect each individual
opinion, including opinions from the minority. The basic principle is
individualism, and democracy does not exist as long as individual
dignity is denied. I think the time has come again for us to be reminded
how important it is to respect each individual’s dignity.HIRANO: What do you think citizens in Japan should
do when democracy as a political system is on the verge of crisis? When
the Abe administration has been pushing to restart some of the nuclear
reactors and public opinion seems to be going along with it, what do you
think citizens can do? For example, would it be of any help to hold
workshops or study groups to re-examine and discuss the Constitution? Or
is direct action necessary?MURAKAMI: I think the most important thing now is to
have people who are aware of these problems begin to go over the
Constitution again and re-examine its underlying spirit by questioning
its origin and background. As I said earlier, unless we achieve profound
understanding of Japanese history and the history of pre-war Japan and
examine how the Constitution was created, we will not fully comprehend
and appreciate what is written in it. Now that Japan is facing a crisis
of democracy, I believe the active understanding of the Constitution may
be able to save the situation.There are citizen
movements, and we could say that people in the movements are new types
of individuals, but I am worried that this could move in a dangerous
direction, potentially leading to fascism. For example, recent growing
anti-China and anti-Korea sentiments could lead in that direction. As
the Nazis targeted the Jews, certain groups of people become a target.
This is one of the characteristics of totalitarianism or fascism. I
often hear the term, populism, but I find it alarming. People find a
target inside the country, like the permanent ethnic Korean residents of
Japan (Zainichi). Zaitokukai’s12 hate speech and
internet right-wingers are a case in point. This is exactly the same
thing that the Nazis did to Jews. When I visited Europe recently, I
learned that the Swedish Parliament has far-right, far-left and Center
parties, and in Europe this is called democracy.HIRANO: Democracy ensures and respects diversity,
disagreement, and spirit of civil dialogue. But populism propels
anti-intellectualism and a culture of hatred.MURAKAMI: In the recent political climate, there is a
tendency to denounce the left or anyone who disagrees with one’s own
point of view. By using the word leftist blindly, people are encouraging
hate speech.HIRANO: I agree. They are normalizing racism and
discrimination. They categorize everything and everyone that is
inconvenient or stands in their way as “leftist” or “traitor.” They even
come up with a conspiracy theory, namely that leftists and traitors are
working with China and South and North Korea to debase and weaken
Japan. As you know, fascism functions well by targeting both internal
and external enemies.MURAKAMI: Exactly.HIRANO: From what I’ve gathered, you are saying that
the problem Japanese society has been facing since 3.11 results from
the fact that it has not reflected on or deeply engaged with democratic
values and thus has not established a firm basis for democratic
practice. And the ongoing Fukushima crisis can be effectively dealt with
only if people in Japan make a conscious choice of upholding the values
of individual freedom and human dignity and decency as well as
prioritizing the quality of life over economistic values and monetary
gains.MURAKAMI: Thank you for summing up so nicely.HIRANO: Lastly, what do you think of the
significance of Tōkaimura, the nation’s nuclear birthplace, becoming a
leader of the anti-nuclear movement? Do you think there are certain
messages that only Tōkaimura could disseminate to the world?MURAKAMI: Tōkaimura has been made to play the role
of a vanguard and a show window to promote nuclear power in Japan. It
has also been carrying characteristics of living under nuclear
colonialism. Tōkaimura’s history has aligned with the history of the
promotion of nuclear development in Japan. Over the years, the Japan
Atomic Energy Research Institute has played a hugely important role, but
economically and financially, the Japan Nuclear Cycle Development
Institute and Japan Atomic Power Company played a greater role.
It is true that Tōkaimura has been proud of being Japan’s nuclear
power hub and being named the “Nuclear Center” or “Mecca of Nuclear
Power.” As a result, it is possible to do everything in Tōkaimura from
nuclear fuel fabrication, power generation and fuel processing. In the
process, everything, including nuclear waste management, of course, was
imposed on Tōkaimura.
On the other hand, it is also true that Tōkaimura used to be an
impoverished village without even a brewery of sake, miso or soy sauce
until the nuclear power plants and related facilities moved in.
Therefore, the consciousness that all of the development and prosperity
that the town has enjoyed since the 1960s is due to the nuclear power
industry still exists strongly among residents.
Farmers were given employment at a nuclear facility, and merchants
got contracts with the industry and no longer had to work hard to
prosper. Also, cash flowed into the village from the sale of land to
accommodate employees from Hitachi-related companies.
In this way, Tōkaimura gradually established an ethos and system
within the administration and city council that would accept anything
from government and industry without hesitation. The village has become
an impregnable fortress and an incredibly cozy place for the promotion
of nuclear energy. However, the JCO criticality accident came as a sort
of rude awakening. This is a country that lacks the ability to keep
nuclear power plants; therefore we should immediately follow Germany’s
path of total abolition of nuclear power.
The Japanese government under Abe has been pushing to restore the
previous energy policy that prevailed before the Fukushima nuclear
accident. They say that the government will take full responsibility,
but our government has no ability to do so. That’s the reality of this
country. We must wake up and realize how senseless it is to rely on
nuclear power that would result in loss of control and lead to a major
disaster if something goes wrong even once.
Recommended citation: Katsuya Hirano, "Fukushima and the Crisis of Democracy: Interview with Murakami Tatsuya", The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 13, Issue 20, No. 1, May 25, 2015.Katsuya Hirano is Associate Professor of History, UCLA. He is the author of The Politics of Dialogic Imagination: Power and Popular Culture in Early Modern Japan
(U of Chicago Press). He has published numerous articles and book
chapters on the colonization of Hokkaidō, settler colonialism, cultural
studies, and critical theory, including “The Politics of Colonial Translation: On the Narrative of the Ainu as a ‘Vanishing Ethnicity’”.Akiko Anson is a freelance translator who lives in
Iowa City, Iowa. Anson obtained a BA degree in English literature from
Gakushūin University in Tokyo, Japan and an MA degree in Asian Studies
from the University of Iowa.Related articles
• David McNeill and Paul Jobin, Japan’s 3.11 Triple Disaster: Introduction to a Special Issue
• Oguma Eiji, Nobody Dies in a Ghost Town: Path Dependence in Japan's 3.11 Disaster and Reconstruction
• Andrew DeWit, Fukushima, Fuel Rods, and the Crisis of Divided and Distracted Governance
• Anders Pape Møller, Timothy A. Mousseau, Uncomfortable Questions in the Wake of Nuclear Accidents at Fukushima and Chernobyl
• Asia-Pacific Journal Feature, Eco-Model City Kitakyushu and Japan's Disposal of Radioactive Tsunami DebrisNotes1 Nakasone Yasuhiro served as Prime Minister of Japan from November 27, 1982 to November 6, 1987.2 Shōriki Matsutarō was a Japanese journalist and media mogul. Shōriki owned the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's largest daily newspapers, and founded Japan's first commercial television station, Nippon Television Network Corporation.3 J-PARC is a high intensity protonaccelerator facility. It is a joint project between KEK and JAEA and is located at the Tōkai campus of JAEA. J-PARC aims for the frontier in materials and life sciences, and nuclear and particle physics.4 Koide Hiroaki is former assistant professor at Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute (KURRI).
He has been advocating abandoning all nuclear power for last 40 years
and is now a leading voice of the anti-nuclear movement in Japan.5 This refers to the economic policies advocated by Abe Shinzō A since the December 2012 general election.6 Futaba is located on the Pacific Ocean coastline of central Fukushima. The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, owned by the Tokyo Electric Power Company, is located on the southern border of Futaba in the neighboring town of Ōkuma. The Fukushima nuclear disaster transformed Futaba into a ghost town.7 Minamata is a city located in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan.
It is best known for neurological disorder caused by mercury poisoning.
The disease was discovered in 1956. The Chisso Corporation’s chemical
plant was responsible for causing the disease by emitting untreated
wastewater into Minamata Bay.8 Municipal mergers
and dissolutions carried out in Japan from 1995-2006. Most of Japan's
rural municipalities depend heavily on subsidies from the central
government. They are often criticized for spending money for wasteful
public enterprises to keep jobs. The central government, which is itself
running budget deficits, has a policy of encouraging mergers to make
the municipal system more efficient.9 The guidelines made in 1940 for the construction of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere.10 In 1941, the Japanese government made the guidelines for a total war against Britain, Holland, and the US.11 Article 13. “All of the people shall be
respected as individuals. Their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness shall, to the extent that it does not interfere with the
public welfare, be the supreme consideration in legislation and in other
governmental affairs.”12 The Association of Citizens against the Special
Privileges of the Zainichi is a Japanese political organization that
seeks to eliminate perceived privileges extended to foreigners who have
been granted Special Foreign Resident status. Its primary target is
permanent Korean residents.

Monday, 25 May 2015

Ruiko Muto, who heads a group seeking criminal charges against TEPCO and
government officials, declares the establishment of a liaison
conference concerning the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

NIHONMATSU, Fukushima
Prefecture--Ten groups of plaintiffs in lawsuits and other legal
actions over the Fukushima nuclear disaster have joined forces to
demand compensation and accountability from the government and Tokyo
Electric Power Co.
The groups held a liaison conference, called Hidanren (coalition
of nuclear accident victims), to mark its establishment in
Nihonmatsu, Fukushima Prefecture, on May 24. The network comprises
20,000 people.
Ruiko Muto, who heads a group pursuing criminal responsibility of
TEPCO and government officials, expressed frustration over the
developments since the nation’s worst nuclear accident unfolded in
March 2011 at TEPCO’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
She called on the groups to work together to press their demands.
“So far, no one has been charged with criminal responsibility,”
Muto said. “Few (of the affected) are receiving compensation that
they agree with, and few have a clear vision of how to rebuild their
lives.”
She also said evacuees are under growing pressure to return to
their homes soon amid a government campaign to label their hometowns
as safe.
The goals set by the conference include: having authorities and
TEPCO offer an apology and full compensation to the victims; restore
the victims’ livelihoods and lifestyles; provide medical service
coverage; and introduce measures to reduce radiation exposure among
residents.
The participants of the conference included a group of plaintiffs
from Fukushima Prefecture who fled to Tokyo, Kanagawa, Kyoto and
Okayama and other prefectures after the Great East Japan Earthquake
and tsunami caused the nuclear disaster. They are demanding
compensation.
Also present were plaintiffs from Fukushima municipalities,
including Minami-Soma, Kawamata, Iitate and Kawauchi, who are seeking
compensation; a group preparing to file a lawsuit in connection with
the nuclear disaster; and a group of plaintiffs calling for legal
steps to deal with radiation exposure among children.
Toyohiro Akiyama, a former TV journalist and astronaut who was
involved in organic farming in Tamura, Fukushima Prefecture, before
the nuclear disaster, said little progress has been made in terms of
phasing out nuclear power generation because of a lack of imagination
on the part of the public.
“We should have a wholesale review of people’s way of life in
a metropolis,” said Akiyama, 72, professor of agriculture at Kyoto
University of Art & Design, who spoke as a supporter of the
network.
He was alluding to the fact that the Fukushima plant was built to
transmit electricity to the Tokyo metropolitan area.
Source : Asahi Shimbunhttp://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201505260003